Eduardo Saverin, shown above, is Mark Zuckerberg’s “jilted” cofounder. But he sure looks like a happy guy on his Facebook page today. The Facebook IPO pricing details make him worth $2 billion.
UPDATE: Eduardo Saverin is at the center of a boiling controversy — he has renounced his U.S. citizenship allegedly to avoid paying taxes on his Facebook winnings, as detailed below. Facebook shares will be priced at $38 US when that company, which Saverin co-founded at Harvard with current CEO Mark Zuckerberg, makes its Initial Public Offering Friday, May 18, 2012. It’ll be the biggest Internet IPO ever. Here’s a look at the company post IPO.
Eduardo Saverin, unless you saw the film “The Social Network,” is hardly a household name. That is apparently how he likes it. The “other” Facebook founder, a Brazillian native and formerly a close friend and business partner of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, now lives in Singapore.
Sure, he was diluted from an original 35 percent share of Facebook down to two percent. And that’s worth about two billion dollars US.
Zuckerberg and six other investors own well more than half of Facebook stock. The details of that IPO were revealed yesterday. Zuckerberg will retain a majority stake. Forget the comparison, though, and you’ll see Saverin made out pretty okay. Robbed? Depends on who you talk to. But $2B is more than he will likely spend in a lifetime.
Anyone out there have thoughts on this?
Mr. Saverin was squeezed out of Facebook early on, and found his stake in the Internet juggernaut diluted to less than 10% from 34%. Today, after more dilution and sales of some of his shares, his stake is about 2%, according to a person familiar with the matter.
But 2% can go a long way, given that Facebook filed documents Thursday to go public with a valuation of up to $96 billion. It can go especially far in Singapore, a financial center better known for banning the sale of chewing gum than for a thriving technology scene.
[…] Eduardo Saverin: Facebook Co-founder Renounced U.S. Citizenship to Avoid Taxes? by Gina Smith […]
[…] to buy stock when shares became publicly available and all manner of conspiracy theories regarding Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin’s move to Singapore and rununciation of U.S. citizenship — allegedly so he wouldn’t have to pay taxes on the billions he could receive for the […]